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I love tech – it’s a part of my personal life, a huge piece of my
business, and where I draw inspiration. But since the
1990’s, it’s sad for me to say that tech hasn’t truly pushed
small business out of its old ways and into greener pastures.
That’s why I’m happy to point to 2012 as both the Year of
the Dragon and the (lesser-known) Year of the Tablet. In
last year’s Q4 alone, the Kindle Fire sold up to 6 million units and Google
Android tablets 10.5 million.

The numbers don’t lie: tablets are primed to
transform computing for small businesses this year, and it isn’t
all about the iPad (which sold 11.2 million units in Q4).

Until recently, it was easy to excuse those who thought that
tablets are to laptops as laptops are to desktops. As
Sarah Lacy points out on
PandoDaily, it’s not that simple. It’s different than
the “SAAS mania of the early 2000s” that ran into IT barriers.
Tablets change the way we interact with software.
Because tablets utilize touch-based apps, Lacy predicts
that workers are more included to adopt business software,
partially “because it’s the new shiny toy they want more reasons
to use.” Apps follow the mantra “there’s an app for that,”
which works perfectly for small business, because, no matter your
workflow, there is an app to help.

Tablets are designed simple and functional, important
distinctions for small businesses. Rather than booting up a
computer or laptop (or keeping one running for the entire day)
that is also running a host of other programs in the background,
tablet apps give you what you want when you want it. If you
want to balance your checkbook, create an invoice or scan and
send documents to the cloud, jumping into an app is much easier
than booting up a program on a traditional computer. It’s
also important to point out that beyond the obvious tablet choice
of the iPad - the Amazon Kindle and now the Samsung Galaxy –
have put competitive, appealing alternatives on the market.

The main advantage of a tablet is speed, which is enhanced
because of mobility. Why wait to input an invoice into a
computer or share a business contract when you are back in the
office? Many SMBs don’t sit at a desk all day; they are on
the floor, servicing customers or out on the road. The
mobile nature of tablets and apps let you take action right away,
and many times from the field without lugging around a laptop.
Plus, the tablet is replacing a lot of traditional equipment
small businesses need at a lower cost, like a cash register, fax
or scanner.

I’m certainly not the first to predict that tablets have a home inside
businesses, but it is important to make the distinction that
they have a home within small business. I think that by the
end of 2012, small businesses will understand and adopt tablets
in their daily workflow. This will push app developers like
myself to create better software to make your lives easier… and
I’m sure there will be a new version of Angry Birds out soon,
too.